


Little Person

by Lightheaded_Dullahan



Category: Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Character Death, Not Really Character Death, Somehow it's both
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-07 02:28:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16399646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightheaded_Dullahan/pseuds/Lightheaded_Dullahan
Summary: It's pathetic.





	1. #1, #8, and #19

_**#1** _

It’s pathetic. 

It’s barely the size of his palm. Really, it’s more of a blob than a homunculus. He wants to squish it under his boots before it's even out of the tube. He doesn’t have to. It’s dead the moment it leaves its womb, it couldn’t even hold itself up. All that’s left is a puddle of materials. 

It’s pathetic like him.

_**#8** _

It lives past the womb stage. It’s still the size of his palm but it is vaguely humanoid. It is the first one to move more than a few steps. He picks it up to examine it, it is limp and boneless. He squeezes it between his fingers, feeling its faux organs move away from his finger’s push. It won’t do much in this state.

He holds it in his hand, it’s head rolling across his finger as he moves it around. His thumb starts to press down on it. He pushes hard and harder until its skin breaks. He’s clawing open the thing’s chest with his nails, the fake blood that pours out from its small body stains his hands and shoes. It’s head slowly caves in from the fingertip crushing it until it leaves through the chest cavity inside out. Had there been a brain, it would have been where its heart was supposed to be. Its fake organs stick to his hand, the thing starts to melt away as he crushes its tiny appendages by tearing it from just below the head and the part reminiscent of a body. 

It drips onto the floor slowly before he drops the remains from his hands. He records it as a success. The previous two melted before he could fully break the skin. There are still remains on his hands when he leaves.

_**#19** _

This one is about the size of his hand. It could move around far more with its spine. It even had a small brain, no bigger than a pinhead. Its skin was far more durable, it would bend but it did not break. He scarped off a long piece from its back with a scalpel, it jerked around when the metal touched it. 

It moved around on his desk, falling over pencils and pens. It looked almost cute, but it still barely resembled a humanoid with the dark holes where its eyes and mouth should be. He knew it was blind, it never responded to movement unless it was touched. It was disgusting. 

As he watched it move about, it suddenly slowed. Every step it took became more and more rigid. It was soon reduced to crawling as its visible spine went in and out of shape. Then it stopped completely after the spine broke the skin, the faux blood leaking out of the hole. Its spine contorted once more to return deep inside the creature, resting where its stomach would be. One upper appendage inflexibly reached out barely above the table it rested it on. Light, horrid vibrations bubbled up from it, flowing out just like the blood from its back. It tried to use its upper appendages to move, only for them to drop off from the weight applied. Those vibrations continued as it melted into a puddle, unable to move. It let out one last vibration as its head fell apart onto the desk before it started to blend with the rest of its former body. 

He smiled and wrote it down as a success. The pencil he uses has drops that run down it and hit the paper. The next day, the pool is cleaned up in an old rag and thrown into the trash. 

Even the success had been pathetic.


	2. #32, #54, #87, #104

_**#32** _

They were now the size of children. It looked dead. It didn’t breathe or eat or sleep. Its face was comprised of nothing more than three gaping holes. He hated how it looked. 

They were far more stable now, one could last up to a month now before it started to melt away. It never got any easier to clean. Now it had organs and bones that would stay behind when it fell apart and soaked the surrounding area with what was left of its skin and hair. He reminded this by kicking it into a bucket before its limbs started to fall apart and stain the floor white and red.

This one had been particularly annoying. It would hang onto his lab coat where ever he went. He would kick it away and push it down. No matter what, it would get up and go back to holding onto his coat. It had the mind of a lost dog.

One day, it wouldn’t let go no matter what. He kicked it and pushed it and it held on. He had work to do, he didn’t need this distraction.

The arm was first to go. Its bones and muscles made it harder to remove, but with a foot on its chest, the shoulder came loose from its socket. He started to saw away at the skin until it gave way to the muscle, then until it gave way to the bone, and then until there was nothing left to hold it to the other bone. It was making noises as he sawed, he hated the sound, it grated on his ears like nails on the chalkboard. He slammed his boot down on the small chest until it was an ugly purple and misshapen. He took the saw and took away the other arm, the blood staining his arms and the floor as the body under him jerked and squirmed in his grasp. He kneeled on the chest as he started with the legs. 

It tried to kick him away, to get him away, it wanted to live. 

The ribs collapsed under his knee, he was in its chest cavity as he sawed off the second leg. It was still fighting under him, it was still wriggling in an attempt to live. His pants had been stained with the red liquid as he tore off the leg and threw it behind him. The creature was even louder now, it was whimpering and howling. It really was a dog. He took its neck into his hands and pressed into the skin. The useless thing was starting to melt as its neck gave in to the bruising grip that tightened at every twitch. He squeezed it harder and harder until it gave away like butter under a blazingly hot knife. 

The 33rd homunculus stared at him from its tank with a single unblinking eye. It was the wrong shade of blue.

_**#54** _

They had eyes and a mouth now. No nose to be found. It made it look too strange to be human. He would need to fix that. The eyes were almost the perfect shade blue, it was far too pale in the left eye and far too dark in the right. They still didn’t breathe or eat.

He brushed its hair, it finally was long enough to be normal for the person they were replacing. It sat still as he ran his fingers through the transparent locks. It wouldn’t get soft enough no matter how hard he tried. 

They lived for far longer now, four and a half months. So far, it had only been two for this particular one. It was smarter than its predecessor. It could read simple books and understand directions. This was a sign of good progress. 

He felt something drip on his hand. There was a white drop that clashed with his much darker complexion. He feels it stiffen under his hand. It's a failure. It already melting. It needed to go.

It must have sensed his intent. It jerked away, failing to the ground as it ran from the room. It tried to outrun him, it had a head start but its legs were small and falling apart. It cried out as one of its legs cracked under it, bending in far too much for it to run anymore. It limped past the corners and doors but he caught up. 

He grabbed it by the hair and pounded its head into the wall. Every time he slammed the side of the head into the metal wall, the thing would sob and make broken noises of pleading. Part of its scalp fell onto the floor as the skull broke and split apart. Its brain was on full display and the pink color had been stained dark red as he continued to smash the skull to pieces. He dropped the remaining half of the head, its jaw was broken and hanging from one side, one eye was crushed like a red-veined grape in between teeth. It was on the floor, making noises as its skin was melting away revealing its organs and bones.

“Aaa...iiiii….”

“Lllllllvvvvvv….”

“wwttttttaaa….”

_**#87** _

It was a horrible failure. It was older yes, a teenager, but its arms and legs weren’t fully formed. They melted in the tank before it ever came out. It had no use being alive anymore. 

It didn’t try to save itself, it closed its eyes and waited for the knife. It didn’t resist, and he was tired of cleaning up the mess. He threw it into the basement with the other failures that had yet to melt. He’d have to wade between the bodies and blood if he wanted to drain the pool. 

He still hadn’t, no one would ever be down here and he never noticed the smell anymore. Not only that but there were too many bodies to get rid of now unless he chopped it all up. He didn’t have time for that, he wanted to finish his mission.

_**#104** _

This one would have been perfect. It didn’t melt, it was intelligent, it had all the correct shades and proportions. But, it's hiding. It's been hiding for a year now. He knew it was still there, food from the kitchen was missing and scraps of fabric were gone when he looked away.

Now though, he found it. He found it hiding in a small room all alone. He grabbed its arm and it collapsed in his grip. He pulled off the tablecloth hiding it to see nothing but a rotting, naked corpse. Maggots were crawling in its eyes sockets and mouth, the eyeballs had collapsed and what's left of the tongue is dry. One of the ears has been chewed off by a rat and insect bites covered the body, there were roaches crawling on its legs. Ants were eating away at its fingertips. Its body was slumped and discolored, tanned with the abdomen a repugnant blue-green color, bloated in some areas but its bones were still too prominent. Its limbs were stiff and curled. The smell was unbearable and its blood had pooled in its legs.

He locked the door. It could rot until the bones were dust for all he cared. It was nothing but a disgusting, useless, and ungrateful failure that deserved no more attention.


	3. #170

_**#170** _

This one is flawless. Its hair is unkempt and long, white to the point of being almost transparent. Its eyes are the correct shade of blue, and its gaze is as pricing as a well-kept steel blade. The body is a bit too thin, but some training should make it as lean as the one it was replacing. It was intelligent, it could read, it could write, it could speak, and it could think. It looked cold and intimidating, but that was the desired result. It also wouldn’t melt.

Yes, he was proud of this one. He knew those warning from van Hohenheim were given to simply discourage him from completing his mission. There was nothing wrong with this creation, it was absolutely perfect.

However…

 

_**#000** _

He had his perfect creation, now he just had to get rid of the remaining failure. It was far away from the lab. How it lived this long was a mystery to him. 

He was home, he had lived there a long time. For nearly half that time he lived alone. He had worked himself to the bone to complete his mission. The only time he returned was to sleep and eat. 

The final failure is asleep. It doesn’t so much as twitch when he sits next to it. It's surrounded by so much machinery, it must feel just as at home as it did in the lab. He can’t tell if its eyes are the right shade.

It's finger twitches when he holds the knife just above the breastbone. It makes him freeze, is it waking up? It is not a failure? No, it doesn’t move again. The only movement now is the steady up and down of its chest. He started to stab the chest, lightly at first, starting from just under the collarbone until he reached the end of the ribs. Then, he plunged the knife in deeper and deeper until it had to use both hands to pull it out just to drive it into the flesh once more. The handle and his arms became slick and red, the knife slipping out of his grip more than once. The body under him jerked from the attack, but it could only be seen as a twitch. It wouldn’t wake up anymore. Not with its heart nothing more than chunky red ribbons. Not with its pale pink lungs ripped to shreds and soaked red.

When he brought the creation home, he was asleep. He dropped him on the couch and draped a blanket over him. It had been such a long time since his brother was home. He went to his room to change when his reflection caught his eye.

Why was he covered in blood? Why did it look like he cried? His brother was home after all this time, why did he look so disheveled? 

 

In his brother’s room, the machine had held a steady flat beep for the last two hours.


	4. Extra - Locked In

Karna had been proud of his brother when he was accepted as a student under Paracelsus von Hohenheim. All those nights studying and refining his skills had finally paid off. Maybe now he would have time to sleep and eat properly. Ah, he could only hope.  
-  
-  
-  
It had been an avoidable accident. He had been handling a Krait when someone spooked it terribly, now all he knew was he couldn’t move. He was still conscious and aware of everything around him, but he couldn’t feel any of his limbs. Karna was worried about the Krait, it was timid even for its species and rarely let anyone near it. He was concerned it wouldn’t eat anything given to it now. 

He could hear his brother fretting over him with the doctor. He was asking to bring Karna home, the hospital was too far from his workplace for him to make it in time for visiting hours to check on his brother. The doctor said they had to wait until his condition was more stable. Karna went back to sleep.  
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Arjuna always worked late into the night, the machine would feed him through a tube at three separate intervals every day. His brother always came to talk to him, or rather talk at him, before he went to sleep. It was normally about how his experiments wouldn’t last long outside of their artificial womb, how they would melt and leave a giant mess. He felt proud of his brother for sticking with his profession though, even if he was having a hard time getting his desired results.

Sometimes, Arjuna would fall asleep curled up in a ball next to him on the bed. Just like when they were younger. The winters had been too cold and the heating bill would become too expensive. He couldn’t wrap his arms around him anymore, and he felt cold. Ah, he could worry about it in the morning.

His brother was gone longer and longer now. Sometimes he never said a word to him, only exchanging his food and water. Other times he would just stare at him when he returned home, he wouldn’t say anything or sit down next to, he just stared. Karna believed it was simply built up stress, it would go away eventually.   
-  
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Karna awoke to the sound of a car outside. Ah, Arjuna must be home now. He was still tired though, he kept his eyes closed in an attempt to fall back asleep. He felt the bed dip next to him. That was a rarity now, his brother never really sat next to him anymore. 

There’s something just above his chest, it's not touching him but he can tell something is there. It stills, he can hear something being clenched tighter. He wonders why there’s hesitation. Then, it feels like something is poking him. He can’t tell what it is.

It’s suddenly in him and then out of him. He can feel it go deeper and deeper with every plunge. Karna doesn’t want to open his eyes, he’s too tired. Sometimes the object would stop and then be jabbed into his chest again, near the end it felt like more and more pressure had been applied. It should have hurt, it should have been unimaginable painful, but Karna couldn’t feel anything but a strong numbness.

He can hear someone crying, slurred apologizes mixed in with heaving breaths and a breathless laugh. He recognizes the voice, and he accepts what’s happening. His brother’s stress finally boiled over. The stress of so many failures and a disabled brother finally broke his calm. He choose the easiest thing to get rid of, and that was okay. He couldn’t breathe anymore, not even the mask could help now. He couldn’t even hear his own heartbeat, in fact he hadn’t heard anything in the past minute.  
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Karna hoped his brother would be happy with his decision. He would accept it. In was in his nature to. He had a final thought of concern pass through his mind before he the world around him disappeared.

_Had Arjuna been overworking himself again? Ah...I hope not._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wonder if this is enough angst now...

**Author's Note:**

> I blame D8ONO for this
> 
> Also, I feel as this isn't quite graphic enough for the warning...is it?


End file.
